this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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I hear your concerns, man. But a cursory look at the current science behind how we describe things like BOE and Clathrate Gun don’t leave us with mere years between now and instant hotpot catastrophe.
I don’t think it’s useful (if your goal is to promote the mitigation of these events and a livable world for future generations) to catastrophise at that pitch and make it sound like we’re fucked.
We’re not fucked. Things are going to get a lot harder. A lot harder. Much badness. But we’re not fucked. There’s room to work here. And we need to start doing a LOT of work without making it sound like starting wouldn’t do us any good.
I get that you have hope, but magical thinking isn't going to fix this unless you are literally capable of magic or you have a time machine powered by positive thoughts or something.
We are already globally over capacity on fresh water. Crops are already failing. The earth is already at heat storage capacity. Carbon emissions are still rising. Population numbers are still rising. Capitalist industry is still posting record profits.
Most people won't even consider a vegan diet and campaigning for community gardens and bike lanes isn't going to magically increase the heat storage capacity of the oceans.
So I am genuinely asking you, mitigation of resourse depletion, works how? Mitigation of thermodynamics works how?
What type of hard work do you think can fix this?
Accusing me of magical thinking and then elaborating on or reiterating your point sort of closes the door on this discussion.
I could copy and paste a bunch of stuff, add a bunch of links. I don’t think it would bring us closer.
The scientific consensus (as I understand it and you’ve yet to convince me otherwise) is that global freshwater supplies are unevenly distributed but far from depleting; crop failures are regional and gradually being mitigated by advances in agriculture; oceans can still continue absorbing heat with severe ecosystem impacts, but there isn’t any reason to use language like “full capacity” limits unless you’re misrepresenting the facts to scare people; population growth is slowing, with consumption patterns, not numbers, driving resource strains.
I want to reiterate: you are not helping the issue by telling people the end is nigh. You’re also not being honest, so long as you’re claiming to have kept abreast of the way experts in these fields are talking.